| Atlantic Cod | ||||||||||||||
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| Gadus morhua |
The Atlantic Cod (Gadus morhua) is a well-known foodfish. It grows to 6 1/2 feet in length and has a distribution north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, along the western Atlantic Ocean. This fish is also found along the northern Atlantic coasts in Europe.
This species has been heavily overfished, resulting in a crash in the fishery in the United States and Canada. The fishery has yet to recover, and may not recover at all due to a possibly stable change in the food web. European populations are now also in danger, with some scientists calling for a moratorium on cod fishing in the waters around the British Isles.
Coloring is brown to green on the dorsal side, shading to silver ventrally. Its habitat ranges from the shoreline down to the continental shelf. Northwestern Atlantic populations spawn in the winter/spring in the Cape Cod region in a location called Georges Bank.